Designers in Residence 2013 at the Design Museum

The Design Museum runs an annual programme giving recent design graduates a chance to develop ideas and prototypes in a supportive environment, as Designers in Residence. This year’s theme is identity, and the response is as diverse as the brief is open, with some works exploring the retrieval of a lost sense of identity, while others investigate where the individual can be expressed in our increasingly tech-driven culture.

Chloe Meineck’s Musical Memory Boxes are beautifully simple multi-sensory cases, individual to each patient, holding personal photographs, memory prompts and key music from the person’s past. Small objects are made for handling, and represent significant people and tokens from a life. Backed up with investigation and research, it’s a well realised idea with great use and meaning.

Thomas Thwaites’ concept questions our consumption of information by creating a fictional entity, which oversees us like a benign Internet dictator. Nebo intervenes in information streaming, disrupting the messages of adverts so that they cease to have consumerist effect. There is a Nebo wallet that decides what you should or should not spend money on and may not allow you to buy certain products if they are not good for you, and Nebo shoes which take you where you ought to go. It’s a really funny, thoughtful cluster of ideas which Thwaites has made into actual prototypes.

Eunhee Jo looks to the future in reimagining the textile surfaces of things we live with. Material with technology embedded within creates new possibilities in home lighting, whilst Adam Nathaniel Furman presents a wonderful array of colourful objects made with both traditional and cutting-edge technologies.

The Design Museum is moving to its new location in 2015, the old Commonwealth Institute building in Kensington High Street. It promises much more space and exhibits in a contemporary setting. Meanwhile, its collections of iconic design product originals continue to delight and inspire.

Verdict: ★★★★★

Eleanor MacFarlane

Photos: Andrei Grosu

Designers in Residence 2013 is on at the Design Museum until 12^thJanuary 2014, for further information visit here.